Thanks to the beneficence of a 28-year-old Coors trust-fund baby, Coloradans may soon enjoy the same “right to work” guaranteed citizens of the old Soviet Union.

Article 40 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution 40 stated:

Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure.

This right is ensured by the establishment of a working week not exceeding 41 hours, for workers and other employees, a shorter working day in a number of trades and industries, and shorter hours for night work; by the provision of paid annual holidays, weekly days of rest, extension of the network of cultural, educational, and health-building institutions, and the development on a mass scale of sport, physical culture, and camping and tourism; by the provision of neighborhood recreational facilities, and of other opportunities for rational use of free time.”

I’m puzzled why Jonathan Coors, a member of a family normally associated with right-wing causes, would push a Communist concept like right-to-work. But I’m sold, since an idea isn’t responsible for its author.

Excuse me, my phone is ringing.

Hello. What? Oh, phooey.

Belay that endorsement. I’ve just been informed by nit-picking Ed Quillen that the Coors right-to-work plan isn’t the same as the Soviet one. In fact, it doesn’t guarantee you a right to a job at all, let alone “opportunities for rational use of free time.”

It’s just a union-busting scheme.

If you’re lucky enough to find a job at all, the only right the Coors plan gives you is the right to work for less. Quite a bit less, actually. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that an average worker in the 22 states with right-to-work laws earns about $7,131 a year less than workers in free bargaining states ($30,656 versus $37,787). Nationwide, union members earn $9,308 a year more than non-union workers, $41,652 versus $32,344.

These facts aren’t in dispute. To be fair, however, there is considerable controversy among labor economists about whether right-to-work laws cause low wages or whether economic backwaters are more likely to pass anti-union laws. Probably, the truth is a mixture of both.

Right-to-work states have a poverty rate of 13.5 percent, compared with 12.2 percent in free bargaining states. The infant mortality rate is 7.94 percent higher and the uninsured population rate is 15 percent higher on average in right-to-work states. And they spend $1,680 less per pupil in elementary and secondary school.

Twenty-seven other states are “free bargaining” states, where a union can ask the employer for a union shop. If an employer agrees, it must be approved by a majority of the union members voting on the contract.

Strictly speaking, federal law prohibits requiring workers to join a union. But workers in so-called union shops can be required to pay a fee to reimburse the union for the cost of negotiating for their wages and benefits. Such “agency fees” are allowed because federal law requires unions to represent all members of a bargaining unit, whether or not they belong to the labor organization.

Colorado is technically a free bargaining state, but it’s unique in requiring a second election — open to all workers, not just union members — to institute a union or agency shop. A union must be approved by a majority of all workers, not just those voting, or 75 percent of those voting, whichever is larger. In practice, this requirement is so restrictive that there are very few union shops in Colorado.

That helps explain why the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce this week voted, almost unanimously, to oppose Amendment 47, the right-to- work initiative.

My old friend Joe Blake, Chamber president, would rather “return to the strong relationship that business and organized labor have enjoyed for decades” than fight over phantoms.

Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost. com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post. He has a master’s degree in labor relations from CU.

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